Lesson learned. Again.

In more than 30 years of working, I’ve been fired from one job:

It was at a nonprofit (of course). I had moved more than 1000 miles across the USA for the job. Then Executive Director who had hired me quit several weeks after I started, leaving me with a PR disaster to solve at a time when there was a vibrant local press and their voice carried tremendous weight. I consider my strategy to avoid that PR disaster one of the greatest professional accomplishments of my life, but I never got to celebrate it: the new Executive Director loathed me from even before she started, calling the office before her first day to chew me out because a senior manager had given an interview my second week of work where she said some really indelicate things about lack of donor support – apparently, her words were my fault.

For the next 11 months, I was convinced I could win that new Executive Director over. Three months in, the Executive Director from my old job called to offer me my old, summer-only job back, telling me they just couldn’t go on without me. And it was tempting to move back across the country and go back to what I had been doing… but, no, I was staying and I was going to turn this experience around! I made sure everything that came out of my mouth was a supportive and complimentary. If I got blamed for something, I just apologized and said I would do better and never offered any explanation or defense. I worked nights and weekends to make sure absolutely everything in my charge ran smoothly. I even socialized with some of the Executive Director’s allies just to show what a good, fun person I am!

And I got fired anyway: she decided I did something a day before I should have done it. Yes, seriously. When I went to the unemployment office for the first and only time in my life, the agent said, “THAT’s why you got fired? You want to fight that?!” No, thanks. Just give me a check until I get a temp job (got one starting the next week that paid WAY more than unemployment and turned into a two-year job that paid better than anything I’d ever done up to that point – even got profit sharing!).

The reality is I was doomed at that nonprofit from the start, and I had behaved like the adult child of an alcoholic that I am, thinking I could fix this toxic situation through plucky optimism and constant compliance. Months later, when I could finally think back on it and not cry, I realized that not only was I doomed from the start, but it had been a mistake to be so acquiescent. I wasn’t just deferential – I was servile. I looked back on that time and was deeply ashamed of myself: if you get fired, it should at least be for who you REALLY are. It would have been so much better to get fired for speaking out than to get fired despite putting my tail between my legs and conceding in the face of every demeaning comment and criticism.

I don’t regret getting fired from that job – it was inevitable and there is nothing I could have done to stop it. I regret my behavior leading up to the moment – my be-agreeable-at-all-costs-don’t-upset-anyone walking-on-eggshells behavior.

I never behaved that way in a job ever again. Until recently. And the consequences were ALMOST the same – I wasn’t fired, but my last day got moved up four weeks.

I should have spoken out immediately about the bullying and degrading comments and mismanagement. I should have said, “I know that this isn’t something you really want to hear, but I have to bring this to your attention…” I didn’t. I covered for the mismanagement and sometimes took the blame, just to get through the impending, urgent deadline and show a public-facing success. I held my tongue. And the consequences were almost the same. Once again, I regret far, far more what I didn’t say than anything I did.

It is better to be criticized for doing something honestly and deliberately because you believe it is the best action to take for the benefit of the organization and per what your job description says you should be doing, than to try to avoid conflict. It is better to say, “This isn’t working and here’s the data to prove it…” or “Here is a problem that will need to be addressed…” than to sugar coat everything, or to just not say anything at all and hope for the best.

I did finally speak out. And if, as a result, I burned a bridge, so be it – I feel far, far better for saying what I have than for all I swallowed in pursuit of “Let’s not upset her…”

And, as usual, it is amazing to me that my honesty and frankness, which would be celebrated and rewarded in a man, is criticized as “I don’t like your tone” by a woman. And it also amazing to me that what one employer loves and rewards, another will reprimand.

Anyway… lesson learned. Again.